Bangalore first railway station in India to have Wi-Fi facility

Bangalore: The Indian Railways has successfully implemented Wi-Fi facility in Bangalore City Railway station for providing high speed Internet to the passengers. RailWire – the retail Broadband distribution model of RailTel Corporation of India Ltd, a PSU of the Ministry of Railways, is the powering engine for distributing Internet bandwidth through Wi-Fi.

The facility at Bangalore is taken up as a pilot project. This service will be great help for the commuters at Bangalore City Railway station to stay connected and surf internet on the go. With the implementation of this service, Bangalore railway station becomes the first station in the country to have WiFi facility for passengers.

RailTel has been mandated by Railways to provide Wi-Fi facility at A1 & A category stations and Bangalore is the first such stations being taken up this facility by RailTel as a pilot. The facility has been created by RailTel with a Gigabit Ethernet network using Optic Fibre in a ring. 17 such GE switches deliver to 46 Nos of Wireless Access Points (AP), which are commissioned strategically at all 10 Platforms including concourse area. OFC cable has been laid in all the platforms at Bangalore City Station, including FOB & Subway.

Wi-Fi facility shall be available to the passengers on their Mobile Phones free of charges initially for a period of 30 minutes. For usage beyond 30 minutes, the user may purchase scratch cards, which will be made available at the Wi-Fi Help Desk. These are priced at Rs.25 for 30 minutes and Rs.35 for 1 Hour and are valid through 24 hours. Additional browsing time can also be purchased on-line using Credit/Debit cards.

RailTel Corporation a Mini Ratna (Category-I) PSU is the largest neutral telecom services providers in the country owning a Pan-India optic fibre network covering all important towns & cities of the country and several rural areas covering 70% of India’s population. RailTel is in the forefront in providing nationwide Broadband Telecom & Multimedia Network in all parts of the country in addition to modernization of Train operations and administration network systems for Indian Railways.